How ZEGNA’s FW25 suit revives a hidden chapter of Italian tailoring

In the long history of Italian menswear, few garments carry a narrative as layered as the ZEGNA suit. Yet the story of the FW25 Torino style – the centrepiece of the brand’s new collection, doesn’t begin on a runway or even in the famed wool mills of Trivero. It begins with a man travelling to Torino with a bolt of precious fabric under his arm.

More than a century ago, before Ermenegildo Zegna became synonymous with the highest echelon of tailoring, he was a young entrepreneur obsessed with one question: What can cloth express? He didn’t see textiles merely as raw materials. He saw them as carriers of dignity, tools to elevate the everyday, symbols of a life lived with intention. To test the limits of his own craft, he routinely visited his tailor in Torino, a man who understood that Zegna didn’t just want suits; he wanted statements.

The most storied of these statements was made on the evening Zegna attended a performance at Teatro Regio di Torino, the city’s grand opera house. He brought with him a fabric known as Vellus Aureum, a fibre so rare it bordered on alchemy and requested a suit that would match its extraordinary character. That commission would later be remembered as the birth of what the house now calls Torino style: a way of dressing defined by structure, restraint, and an undercurrent of quiet confidence.

The heritage suit that becomes a modern architecture

More than 100 years later, the FW25 collection doesn’t simply reproduce that legendary suit – it uses it as a blueprint for reinvention. The new Torino silhouette is sharp yet grounded, informed by the founder’s sensibility but filtered through contemporary eyes.

Its lines are deliberate:
– Shoulders with intention, carved rather than padded.
– Generous lapels that command presence without shouting.
– A higher button stance echoing ZEGNA’s 232 Road mark, like a signature hidden in plain sight.
– Rounded pockets, softening the geometry and adding a distinctly Italian warmth.

These are not arbitrary flourishes; they’re signals. They speak to the brand’s philosophy of setting the pace of tailoring rather than following global whims.

At the heart of the collection is a new interpretation of the Vellus Aureum suit, this time cut in a supple flannel. It’s a garment that whispers rather than boasts. The inside reveals couture-like craftsmanship – hand-finished trousers, pure silk linings, and structural details that feel more architectural than decorative. It is, unmistakably, a suit built for a man who appreciates the intimacy of construction.

A campaign rooted in place, not spectacle

To launch the collection, ZEGNA returned to Torino – less as a backdrop and more as a character in the story. The FW25 campaign, fronted by Global Ambassador Mads Mikkelsen, moves between the hushed opulence of Teatro Regio and the crisp Alpine landscape that frames the city. The imagery channels what the house calls Italianità: an elegance that doesn’t need amplification, an ease that is culturally specific yet universally understood.

There are no exaggerated gestures here. Instead, Mikkelsen is seen strolling under Torino’s arcades, lingering over a mid-morning espresso, or pausing between velvet curtains backstage at the theatre. They’re moments that feel almost lived-in – snapshots of a city where refinement is not an event but a habit.

Why the suit still matters

The FW25 collection is a reminder that the ZEGNA suit is not merely a garment but a continuation of a legacy. It speaks to generational knowledge: the founder’s early trips to Torino, the fibre innovations that defined the house, the emotional memories embedded in fabric and form.

This is why the campaign’s message lands with such clarity: “It’s not a suit. It’s a ZEGNA.”

What the brand offers this season is not nostalgia, but continuity, a reaffirmation that tailoring can be both historical and modern, personal and cultural. That a suit can carry not just style, but story.

And in this case, the story leads back, unmistakably to Torino.